Many attempts have been made to develop improved ways of handling animal excretion and waste waters, particularly from cattle and hogs. It has been long recognized that ruminant animal feces contain substantial amounts of undigested fibrous material in addition to food and fertilizer values. Generally the liquid and small undissolved particles contain fertilizer and food values such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium that are commercially valuable. The larger solid material is generally undigested fibrous material that can be utilized when dried as bedding material for animals.
Most of the prior art devices that have been utilized for such purposes fall within the following categories: (1) rotary screen; (2) brush screen; (3) brush screen press; (4) vibrating screen; (5) rotary screen press; and (6) centrifuge. One rotary screen press system is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,971,720 granted to Roger Swanson et al., July 27, 1976. Although many attempts have been made to utilize one or more of such liquid/solid separators, it is found that most fail to provide an efficient, troublefree and inexpensive system for removing large suspended solids from agricultural waste waters.
One of the principal objects of this invention is to provide a rotary screen type separator for removing solids from a slurry in a very efficient, compact manner.
A further object is to provide such a separator that is easily portable to a processing site and has a high capacity for rapidly separating the solid materials from the liquid.
A still further object of this invention is to provide such a separator that is very economical to operate and maintain and which is additionally substantially self-cleaning.
These and other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment.